Vinay Singhal, CEO & Co-Founder of WittyFeed, world’s second largest viral content company, proclaims that virality of content is not by chance. He says, “Rather Virality is a pure science and WittyFeed has superbly decoded it”.

He made this assertion at the recently concluded Ad Summit KYIV 2017 held at Kiev, Ukraine. Vinay was the only Indian participant invited to address the forum comprising global leaders from advertising, online marketers, affiliates, digital marketing and other related sectors. He addressed participants from more than 30+ countries on the topic, “Decoding Viral Content – Lets hack Virality”.

BW Disrupt caught up with Vinay to understand the Science behind the success of Virality. “In our journey of acquiring 100 million monthly active users, WittyFeed has gleaned the ground knowledge on what makes a content go viral. We have enough data and reasons to believe that Virality is not by chance. Virality is a pure science. There are three vital elements which determine the degree of virality of any content. These elements are Curiosity, Emotions, and Seeding. An interplay of these three elements drives the degree of success of virality of creative content”, he said while decoding virality for us.

It is an accepted truth that a content can only be successful on social media if:

• It reaches to a large number of people
• Those who see it feel interested enough to click on it and go through it.
• Post the content perusal, the readers / audience is compelled to share it with their contacts or the world in general.

How do you ensure that your content achieves all three parameters of success listed above? Singhal reveals how the three elements form the foundation of a successful viral content- be it a single post or an extended branding campaign. He said that:

• Curiosity makes content Clickable
• Emotions make it Sharable
• Seeding ensures that the content is seen by enough number of people to kick start the Virality Cycle.

If a post generates curiosity and invokes strong emotions in the audience through its creative added with a pertinent seeding is a sure recipe for its viral success. In addition to the three elements it is also important to know your market and the audiences whom you wish to target and the how the categories of content / information work around the world. A thorough understanding of this mantra right from the time of its inception helped WittyFeed win the ‘Fastest Growing Company in IT Sector’ award by All India Achiever’s Foundation in its very first year of operation. So, Vinay Singhal knows what he is talking about. He elaborated, “There are two types of content – Global and Local. Content which can be slotted into categories such as Information, Health and Fitness, Science and Technology, Relationship and Humour are common around the world to an extent and fit into the Global type. Categories like Celebrities, Entertainment, News, Politics, Lifestyle, History and Sports etc, need highly tailored content customised to local tastes, beliefs, interests and understandings. This is why WittyFeed has different editions in different countries with a focus on United States, United Kingdom, and India specific editions.”

Concerted focus on locally relevant topics and content and having separate feeds helps viral companies cater to the specific requirement of geographically and culturally diverse audience. It also avoids bombardment of a topic which may be socially or culturally irrelevant to certain segment of world audience in general.

Vinay not only has deep insights to share on a world platform, he is always open to learn from his environment. Sharing his learnings from the Ukraine experience he added, “Ukraine is a place which has the right mix of Russia and Europe. Clean, beautiful and ancient. Ukraine possesses a very advantageous strategic location which gives rise to countless opportunities there. Within our domain too, I learnt that Ukraine is also a place where Facebook is not so popular and it was a very refreshing and new experience for me where I got a chance to look at things from an entirely different perspective. The ecosystem of viral distribution need not work around Facebook alone; there are so many other ways too.” He signed off promising to share those ways at another time.